Failure
by Kickin Taylor
Summary: "Walter?" She asks softly, "Are you ok?" Concerned, she quietly makes her way towards him, she gasps when she sees the label on the bottle next to the shattered wine glass. "Walter, you don't drink." Paige states in surprise. " It clouds your mind, slows down brain function."


_**_I Don't own Scorpion_**_

Paige jolts awake, glancing at the time on her computer screen. 1:30 AM.

She sighs; knowing she should probably be heading home, but quickly dismissing the thought as she looked down at the piles of paper in front of her.

She kicks off her shoes to get comfortable.

She had a paper she had to write for her chemistry class…. Granted, she had another week to write it but Ralph would be around, or the geniuses.

It was very rare she ever got any alone time in the garage. Save for Walter, which was messing with something- quite loudly- upstairs. He sounds like he was coaxing his mouse, Cabe Junior, to do something.

She contemplates asking Walter for his help, he loves science. While to her, her paper looks like a bunch of numbers and letters placed between words, Walter finds this junk useful. But then again, since she began working at Scorpion incorporated, science seems to actually be relevant in daily life.

After attempting to edit her three-page paper and not getting past the third paragraph for the sixth time, she sighs and stands up. Stretching, she finds herself walking up the stairs to the loft and gently knocking on the door.

"Come on, please, just cooperate!" She hears Walter begging on the other side of the door.

His voice is slurred slightly and he's speaking to the mouse. Something a normal person might do but not Walter O' Brian. He was a million miles from normal, in the best way.

"Walter?" Paige calls out warily. Suddenly, she hears something smash.

"Walter!" She yells and opens the door, surprised at what she finds on the other side.

Walters head is in his hands, he's talking to himself, though his words are inaudible threw his palms. He's on his knees, surrounded by broken glass, making noises that could only be explained by an emotional overload.

"Walter?" She asks softly, "Are you ok?"

Immediately, his sobbing stops and he freezes up. Like a child caught stealing from a cookie jar, as Toby would describe it.

Concerned, she quietly makes her way towards him, she gasps when she sees the label on the bottle next to the shattered wine glass.

"Walter, you don't drink." Paige states in surprise. " It clouds your mind, slows down brain function."

"It also reduces the chance of Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia and gallstones. It also helps prevent inefficient, time consuming things like the common cold." He states, unmoving.

"Not when you drink it like this." Paige told him nervously. Something must be very wrong; she didn't need to be a genius to figure that out.

Walter continues as if he hadn't heard her.

"With all these things, at least you won't die a slow and painful death." He moved his hands from his eyes, to look at the bottle.

 _'Is this about Megan?'_ Paige wonders but remains silent.

"Unfortunately, as a side effect, it could extend your lifespan." Walter quickly grabs the empty bottle in his hands and smashes it on the floor in front of him, causing small shards to dig into his skin.

"Walter-"

"But then again-" He finally stands and shakily makes his way into his kitchen. "You don't feel real emotions when you are intoxicated. Not that I feel them at all." Paige hears a faint popping sound and watches Walter take a swing out of a fresh bottle.

The label read vodka.

At this rate, he'll kill himself with alcohol poisoning.

She ran over to him and ripped the bottle out of his hand.

"No!" She finds herself yelling. "Walter what's going on?"

She ran through her mind what could have possibly happened to make him act like this.

On Friday nights, Walter visits Megan in the hospital, he should be there now.

"Is Megan alright?"

"She's... Fine." He attempts to the grab the bottle but without thinking, Paige throws it across the room.

He stares at the broken shards for a minute and then finally makes eye contact with Paige.

Her hands are shaking, her eyes wide.

"I'm scaring you." He states, straitening up.

"N-no." She gently puts a hand on his arm, surprised when he doesn't freeze up. "You are worrying me."

Walter bends over, not facing her and is leaning his arms on the table, with his head in his hands.

Instinctively, Paige begins rubbing soothing circles on Walters back. This causes him to freeze for a moment but he doesn't pull away.

They stay like this for a few minutes, until Paige can no longer take the list of possibilities running rampant in her head.

"Walter what happened?"

"Where is Ralph?" Is all he says, straitening up like a bored, his words are slightly slurred as he avoids the elephant in the room.

"What? With Cabe for the night? Why? Walter, what happened?" To her surprise, he doesn't ignore her and she is shocked when she sees tears falling down his cheeks.

She remains frozen afraid she may scare him off.

He reaches over to the analog phones message machine and hits the play button.

"Mr. O Brian? " A voice says nervously, it's the voice of a nurse Paige had remembered meeting at the hospital. " Hi this is Nurse Gressel from the Meadowland assisted living center, 909 Aculeus Street in Los Angeles. But of course," The woman chuckles nervously, "You already know that. I'm calling about your sister Megan. See, Megan lost the battle she had spent most of her life fighting. While she slept last night, her MS shut down her body, from one limb to the next. I'm- I'm sorry.

I- I regret to inform you that Megan never woke up this morning. I'm so sorry

for your loss." The woman on the other end seemed to be choking up.

"I know she loved you Walter, she always spoke about you being such a great brother and how you're doing great things and how your going to win Nobel prizes. She loved when you visited her every Friday. I'll call your parents next, I'm so sorry for your loss."

Paige manages to recover from her shock that the nurse had actually left all of that in a message, only to be thrown into a worse reality. It takes her a minute to process the death of the oldest O'Brian and she grips the counter tightly.

Megan was her best friend, well, besides Walter.

She looks up at him and wipes her eyes. She needs to help him first, she could grieve later. She's about to speak but Walter picks up a finger, asking her to wait.

Another message comes on.

"197 IQ and can't even help your sister. One of the forth smartest people in the world and you didn't help. You are not a man, your are a killer!" The phone slams shut and the message ends.

It's quiet for a minute before Walter finally begins to speak.

"That was my father, as you may have deduced by his accent." Walter hangs his head low, the alcohol beginning to take it's toll.

"So go," Paige just stares at him in wide-eyed confusion, " Go before I hurt you too, and Ralph."

Paige frowns and gently takes his hand, surprised, once again when he lets her drag him to the couch. She takes the first aid kit with her. She doesn't realize she is crying until Walter wipes away a stray tear on her cheek.

"Now I've hurt you too." He mumbles almost inaudibly.

"I loved Megan too." Is all she quietly says as she picks glass out of his hand.

"Sorry." Walter croaks, " I could have tried harder, I could have saved her, I should have-"

"He's wrong." She speaks through her tears, effectively cutting him off.

" Your not a killer. Something's are just meant to happen the way-"

"You mean fate? Destiny? Those things are nonsensical-" He cuts her off aggressively. At first Paige was just going to let it go, he was grieving.

But she realized, she needed to get him talking more. To let out his

Feelings because he didn't know how to sort them and this would help him. _Fighting,_ would help him.

"Nonsensical?" She questions, feigning aggression.

"And ridiculous! " He cries, " I could have saved her! Fate and destiny aren't real. You know what is?"

"What?"

"Failure. " He states. " The rest is nonsensical."

"So you think you're a failure?" She yells in Surprise.

"No. I am, it's a pure fact. If I thought that, it would be an opinion." He screams, making her jump slightly. "I didn't succeed and therefor I failed."

She wonders briefly if she should stop pressing him at this point, but decides against it. No one knew Walter better than her and this is what he needs.

"Trying was nonsensical." Paige yells at him, Standing up from the coach when he pulls his hand away from her. " You may be a genius but you are working out of a garage! Thinking you would succeed was nonsensical! You were destined to fail!"

"I could have succeeded! Nothing was destined! That's what doesn't make sense. There is no such think at fate and destiny!"

Paige pulls him up with her, their proximity closer than she had anticipated.

"Because it's nonsensical?" She whispers gently, wiping away his tears.

He nods, unable to speak.

"Like... Love?"

He quickly pulls away from her, his frustration obviously rising again as her throws another mug against the wall and falls to his knees in defeat.

"Junk science." Is all he says, his defeated expression told Paige that she had pushed him far enough. "It doesn't exist."

"Only because you don't think you understand it." She whispers and drops down beside and puts a hand on his shoulder, ignore the glass digging into her knees.

"It doesn't exist!" He yells at her once again, shaking her hand off his shoulder and grabbing an un-smashed bottle on alcohol, mostly spilled out over the floor.

"So what is it you felt for Megan that brought a grown, _emotionless_ man, down on his knees, chugging down a bottle of vodka? "

He stands up quickly but remains quiet. He grips the counter and lowers his head, facing away from her.

She speaks gently, careful not to touch him as she stands up and she walks up towards him.

"That's love, Walter." She whispers. " And when something happens to someone we love, yeah, it hurts. A lot. You can blame yourself when logically you know it's not your fault. It could bring even _you_ , to your knees."

She attempts to put a hand on his cheek and get him to look at her, but he pulls away again.

She sighs.

"That's why, we have to learn from it. We have to appreciate the love we have in out lives, not deny that we have it. Megan love-"

Walter quickly turns around and effectively cuts her off by crashing his lips to hers snaking his hands around her waist. Paige finds herself responding and putting her hands through his hair. He pulls away, only to hiss at her.

"Can I _love you_? Can I _appreciate you_ before your gone too?" With out giving her time to respond, he kisses her again and she could taste the alcohol in his breath.

Next thing Paige knows, her back hits the wall and she isn't wearing shoes.

She groans in pain and Walter rips himself away from her.

"I'm sorry!" He says quickly, " It was not my intent to hurt you."

"You didn't!" Paige is quick to explain, " I stepped on the vodka bottle I through."

"Oh." Walter says, picking her up.

He's unusually quiet as he sets he down on the couch and takes out the first aid kit to clean her up. Tears were still on his face, but they were stragglers, he was calming down but not hiding his pain. This was healthy and she was a bit relieved but his silence still worried her immensely.

"What are you thinking about?" She whispers to him as he finishes wrapping up her foot.

It seemed as though the kiss they shared was long forgotten, though both him and her continued to feel their bodies tingling. Now was not the time.

"Sylvester." Is all he says.

Paige frowns and bites her lip. Biting back her tears.

She pulls Walter onto the couch and startles him, but he doesn't pull away when she begins hugging him tightly against her chest.

"Cry Walter." She whispers, gently kissing his forehead. " I'm the only one here."

And to her surprise, he obeys, holding her tightly and practically screaming into her shirt.

His _guilt_.

His _love._

His _failure._

His _Sister._

And Paige cant help but cry with him.

 ** __Please review if you felt anything at all__**

 **VERY IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE:**

 _I'm not into to politics, but his is the only way I know how to say the truth. I follow the news like I'm a disease but I NEED to tell you that it lies. The new york times, NBC, CNN. Its all lies._

 **I'm HERE, in the action. In _ISRAEL_.**

 **I can't walk out of my house, only for school down the block because the price could be my death.**

 **Palestinians tried to set fire to my uncles graveyard because they hate me. I've watched a Palestinian terrorist come on my block with a knife, looking for a victim. I've seen them brutally stab people, chanting "Allah Akbar" and for some reason, the Media and the world blame the army and police for stopping them.**

 **They have hurt my family and their own families.**

 **The world refuses to see this. PLEASE SEE IT, even spread it.**

 **Why can't I have the right to protect myself?**

 **It's not a reality anyone should live in, but this is the world.**

 ** _"If you want to be ignorant, don't read the news. If you want to be ignorant and miss informed- read the news."_** **– Thomas Jefferson (I think)**

 **Obviously not EVERY Palestinian is bad and I'm not asking for any hateful comments, you don't have to believe me.**

 **This isn't politics for me, its life. I'm a witness to Palestinian terror.**

 **Spread the word**

Please review


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